Nurse returns from helping quake-ravaged Haiti

The Haitian-born neonatal nurse has just returned from a two-week trip to her homeland to aid victims of last month's earthquake.

Her face is worn and tired, and her voice breaks as she describes the devastation she saw.

"Once you go there, your heart will just melt," Baptiste said. "You'll have tears in your eyes - no matter how strong you are."

Baptiste went to Haiti with International Medical Corps, a relief agency trying to help Haiti rebuild its medical infrastructure. It has recruited Haitian medical students who are learning to provide emergency care from IMC staff.

"To be there, your heart has to be there also," Baptiste said. "And I really, really thank God that I had the opportunity to be part of it."

Baptiste was born in Saint Du-Sud and grew up in Port-au-Prince. After visits between Haiti and the United States, she permanently joined her mother in New York in 1980.

She moved to Arizona in 1993 and now cares for her mother in their west Phoenix home.

Baptiste was introduced to IMC, a volunteer organization, through her brother, Anderson Vilien, who represented Haiti in the 200-meter run in the 1996 Summer Olympics.

Vilien was recruited to do a public service announcement for IMC after the earthquake, and he recognized that his sister's nursing skills could be of great service.

"(The devastation) crushed all of us," he said. "My mother, my sister, me. I had a cousin that was over there in Port-au-Prince, buried when everything happened, along with uncles. Fortunately they were able to make it out. They couldn't believe that so many people died, but they were able to survive."

A file on Baptiste's computer holds photographs from Haiti. One shows a child burned over more than 30 percent of his body. Another shows a mangled foot, bruised deep green and purple, a direct result of the quake. A third shows a man with cancer under his eye, a condition that might have otherwise gone untreated.

She says the IMC volunteers care deeply about the victims.

"Every patient they touch, you can see the love, you can see the care," Baptiste said. "But, we have a long way to go. I don't want Haiti to be forgotten - because of the children."

The work was tireless but rewarding, Baptiste said. The group spent every day in the IMC medical tents at University Hospital in Port-au-Prince. Doctors and nurses throughout the country joined the team, something she said can only strengthen the Haitians' resolve.

She and her brother plan a return aid trip in May.

"I think the entire world is with Haiti," Baptiste said. "And I think the American people is with Haiti. But I don't want it to be just now, I don't want it to be just a phase they went through and forgot. If we forget about Haiti, we might as well not have started anything at all."